


Our Morals Intact

by Byrcca



Series: Nothing Human [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode: s05ep08 Nothing Human, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-28 22:31:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16731864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byrcca/pseuds/Byrcca
Summary: Funny how abutafter the words ‘I’m sorry’ never seems to help.





	Our Morals Intact

**Author's Note:**

> Tom’s very own personal Kobiashi Maru.

_We’re in the middle of the Delta Quadrant! Who would know?_ ”

~ Tom Paris, _Nothing Human_

 

 

***

Tom found him in the quiet of Jefferies tube junction 37 alpha, and swung off the ladder stepping lightly onto the deck of the small room. Tabor was crouched with his back to him, elbow deep in the guts of the EPS power transfer conduit relay, and Tom took a breath and squared his shoulders before quietly saying his name. Not quietly enough: Tabor hadn’t heard Tom approach and started at the interruption. 

The younger man glanced at him over his shoulder, straightened then turned to face him. “Lieutenant?”

“Sorry,” Tom said, “my fault. I should have warned you I was here.” He’d assumed the sound of his boots on the ladder rungs would have alerted the man, but apparently not. 

“Something I can do for you, sir?” 

His tone was cool, his words polite, but Tom could sense his resentment. “Actually, I realized that I owe you an apology.”

Tabor turned his head, made a show of glancing around the empty bay. “I don’t see any flowers.”

“What?” Tom frowned, confused. 

“That’s what you do, isn’t it? When you apologize. You bring flowers.”

“I… yeah, I guess so.” 

Tabor was referring, of course, to the many and varied arguments he’d had with B’Elanna, and his standard peace offering. But he didn’t only give B’Elanna flowers to apologize, did he? He couldn’t remember. He’d brought her a bouquet after she’d been released from sickbay, red and gold like their uniforms, but it had done nothing to smooth over the disagreement they’d had afterward. And the blooms were likely wilting in the miasma of Klingon incense in her quarters. He shouldn’t have bothered. But the argument that today’s flowers had failed to prevent had made him realize something even as he’d held his ground, and that was why he was here. 

“Sir?” Tabor prodded.

“I’m sorry for what I said in sickbay about the Crell Moset hologram.”

“Are you?”

Tabor wasn’t making it easy for him. “Yeah. I know how you and B’Elanna felt—”

“And Gerron, and Tal, and Dalby, and all of the other Maquis on board.”

“Look, I get it that you're still upset, but it was just a hologram and it didn’t know anything about what the real Moset did on Bajor. It’s like it was a whole separate person.”

“A person?” Tabor drew back, his mouth hanging open, his features drawn in disgust. Tom had always thought the man rather bland, but his facial expression conveyed his feelings clearly. “Cardassians aren’t _people_ , Lieutenant, whether they’re holograms or flesh and blood. They’re killing machines and they slaughtered tens of thousands of Bajorans.” 

His voice was rising, and Tom brought up his hands to calm him. “Look, I didn’t come here to get you upset again. I just wanted you to understand that we needed him to save B’Elanna’s life.”

Tabor’s dark eyes bored into Tom’s making him feel distinctly uneasy. “I respect B’Elanna. I always have. She’s a good boss, and when we were in the Maquis she believed in our fight. I don’t blame her for what happened.”

“Good.” Tom smiled in relief, but Tabor’s next words startled him.

“I blame the Captain and the Doctor. And I blame you.” 

His eyes were blazing, his face pinched in anger, and Tom took a step back. “Look, I understand why you’re angry,” Tom tried, “but B’Elanna was dying. We had to do something. And in the end, the knowledge in that walking database saved her life. If we hadn’t used the hologram, she would have died.” 

He felt tears prick his eyes and looked upward. The last two days had been a rollercoaster: too much emotion, too much stress, too little sleep. All that worry, followed by elation when the Doctor managed to get that creature off of her, out of her. Then, after she’d been released to her quarters, their argument… 

He’d thought this, at least, he’d be able to fix. He shouldn’t have even tried. Tom looked at the other man, hoping he could make him understand. “B’Elanna dying, losing her… It was impossible … incomprehensible.”

“That’s what I used to think about my family!” Tabor’s body was rigid, quivering with emotion. His jaw was clenched, and Tom noticed that his hands were balled into fists. He realized that an engineer’s tool kit could make a pretty good weapon.

Tom frowned. He didn’t know what to do with Tabor’s grief; didn’t have the energy to process it. “I can’t imagine how horrible that was for you to live through, but they’re gone. It’s not like we could go back and help them. Not like there was a choice, their lives or hers. Nothing could bring them back, but we could save B’Elanna. At least, now, they didn’t die for nothing.”

“You—” Tabor shut his mouth, turned away.

“Say what you’re going to say,” Tom said. “There’s no rank here.” 

“You sanctimonious son of a bitch!” Tabor whirled on him. “Crell Moset was responsible for the torture and suffering of thousands of my people. He murdered my family! How dare you imply that the life of your _girlfriend_ is more important than the lives of my grandfather, my brother!”

“What? No!” Tom shook his head. “I didn’t say that.” Tabor’s words were too close to what B’Elanna had said to him, and they pricked at Tom’s residual anger and frustration. His temper rose and he tried to clamp it down. “But I wasn’t willing, I’m not willing to just let B’Elanna die. I’d walk through fire for her! I’d stand in front of the Borg for her!”

Tabor was unmoved. “Every woman he tortured, every child he mutilated, you’ve validated his methods by using his research.”

“No. We’re honouring their sacrifice by sav—”

“Pah!” Tabor turned his back on him. 

Tom bit back a curse, tried to keep his tone even. “You would have done the same to save your grandfather.” 

The other man shook his head as he turned back to face him, and Tom stiffened at the look of disgust on Tabor’s face.

“No, I wouldn’t.” 

“Then you're a better man than me,” Tom confessed. “I couldn’t just let her die to satisfy some debatable moral highgrou—” 

“Debatable? You’re still acting like the life of one person is worth more than another! You love B’Elanna? Well, I loved my brother and my grandfather. You’re suggesting that they traded their lives for hers.”

“No, I’m not. Obviously, they were never given a choice. What was done to them was horrible—”

Tabor wasn’t willing to be consoled. “Who else would you trade for her?” He took a step toward Tom, fury flushing the skin of his cheeks ruddy. “How about Chapman? He’s a nice guy but a little nondescript. Nobody likes Herron anyway, how about him? Neelix? No more leola root stew!” Tabor was furious, his voice rising again, and it echoed down the tube shaft as he continued. “Captain Janeway? Harry Kim? How about Naomi Wildman?” 

Tom flinched at that. 

“Where do you draw the line, Paris?”

“We didn’t have to trade anyone!” Tom closed his eyes, drew a breath, softened his tone. “All the information was just sitting in our databank.”

“Written in Bajoran blood!”

It was like a punch in the gut, and Tom retreated from the man’s anger. There were very few people Tom would die for: B’Elanna, Harry, the Captain. Naomi Wildman. He’d suffer intense pain for Chakotay and Seven, certainly sacrifice a limb for Tuvok and the Doctor and, yes, Neelix. But that didn’t mean he felt the rest of the crew was expendable. 

Tom took a breath. “The people Moset hurt, the ones he killed, of course they matter. What he did during the Occupation was unconscionable and it was criminal, but it’s in the past. We can’t change it. But his knowledge saved B’Elanna’s life. I’m sorry, but I’d tell the Doctor to do it again if we had to.”

“You’re sorry. I don’t want your sympathy, Lieutenant, and I don’t want your apology. I just want you to leave me alone.” 

The edge was back in Tabor’s voice, and Tom recognized the dismissal. He turned to leave but stopped, his conscience nagging him. He had something to offer the other man, after all. 

“I admire you, you know, for believing in something so strongly that… But I couldn’t just do nothing and let someone I care about die. I’d have argued the same if you’d been on that bed. None of us are expendable, Tabor, and when one of us dies there are no second chances. Especially now. The Doctor deleted the programme and all the data. Crell Moset is gone.

“You know, B’Elanna won’t even talk to me right now. I knew she didn’t want Moset touching her, but I begged Captain Janeway to order the Doc to use the programme. I was sitting in the briefing room, and Chakotay and Tuvok were arguing that it was immoral, unethical, to use his research, and all I could think of was that Starfleet would never find out. 

“I don’t flatter myself to think that I swayed Janeway’s decision, but… B’Elanna doesn’t know. She’s mad enough at me for not stopping the Doctor, if she knew I argued in favour of using Moset’s research…” Tom shook his head. “That hologram was just a big, walking database, but if the real Moset had been here, I still would have begged the captain to let him save her. You can tell her, or don’t tell her. It’s up to you.” 

It was all he could offer him. He had one foot on the ladder when Tabor spoke, and Tom stiffened at the contempt in his tone. 

“I don’t need to tell her. You know. And now you’re going to have to live with it.”

******

**Author's Note:**

> Again, thanks to Caseyptah for looking this over even if I didn’t take her suggestion this time. ;) Well, I took one but not the other.


End file.
